You don't need the else good_bit = 1; part, for two reasons:
The 'else' does change the amount of work done, and
The else is redundant anyway, since at the end of the test-set, you only need to check the 'bad_bit' flag to see if comparison failed
On a Multitasking OS, there will still be timing differences, due to thread preemption and task swapping etc, but these differences should not yield anything useful to cryptanalysis.
Sure, one GFX card may not saturate the Bus, but what about more than one?
Imagine having a board with several PCI Express slots - put a Good Graphics Card in, say, each of 3 slots, and multihead your games:)
Also, if I understand it correctly, PCI Express is an upgrade to / replacement for PCI. Sure, it allows high-bandwidth comm to a Graphics Adapter, but also to SCSI/IDE Controllers, NIC's, Video Capture Hardware etc, etc.
1st Thought: Aww, someone wanted to adopt me (I'm a Mike, and a Geek!)
2nd Thought: Only part time programming... Insanity! Withdrawal!
3rd Thought: Help with E-Mail Problems? What do you take me for? I'm not/that/ kind of geek!
4th Thought: Pepperoni Pizza... My Faaaavourite!
5th Thought: You B****rd, You've killed me!
clause 5: The license must not discriminate against any person or group of persons.
Well, this is a classic case of "Anything can be used to build an argument when taken out of context".
This clause refers to the license the software is released under, and not the content or function of the software. Just as Microsoft's Licenses do not define the content and function of their software, the OSS License options, including the GPL, only define licensing terms, and not requirements for software content or functionality.
Windows XP Home does not support more than one Physical CPU, however it does support Hyperthreading (ie. more than one logical CPU). Though this is not true SMP, using SMP techniques for coding and compiling applications can yield performance increases on HT capable CPU's - and since the latest desktop P4 has HT enabled, Joe Public will soon be able to take advantage of Multiprocessor aware apps, even on XP Home.
I am a partially sighted person, and I have to admit that I do frequently have difficulty with accessability issues, particularly with large corporate web sites which all seem to be full-flow multimedia blitzes which require 1600x1200 resolution or higher, and usually override the default browser fonts to make them smaller.
However, there are a number of browsers, such as Mozilla (Just one example, I'm sure there are others!) which allow the user to 'zoom' the text on a page, to override colour settings etc.
Though it is undoubtedly important for Webmasters to pay great thought to the design of their sites in terms of colour, font size and multimedia content; how much relative importance should be placed on browser design, and the browsers ability to override the design decisions of the creator of a site?
OK, IANAQP, but As I Understand It, 'observation' does not need to be a conscious act by an intelligent (or otherwise) biological being
For example, the observation of the spin state of an electron could be done by you using complex equipment - or it could be done by another electron colliding with the first. In order for the effects of the collision to manifest themselves in the physical universe, each electron would have to 'observe' the other, and then 'act' accordingly...
Another method which works well for generating 'random' passwords is to use Phrases, for example:
I'd like to fly, Shipwrecked and Comatose, Drinking fresh Mango Juice
Would yield the password: Il2fSaCdfMJ
Yes, I am a Red Dwarf Fan, and No, I have never used this as an actual password!!
The phrase is more easily remembered than the password, and yields a password which is relatively hard to break by brute force. Of course, phrase based passwords can be weak to Social Engineering, but that's another issue entirely!
Yes, it is a great pity that Wrox have started to go down this route...
I remember the first Wrox book I purchased - "Professional Assembly Language" or something like that - this was back in '93 or '94, and was centered around '386 Asm, with a chunk of '486 stuffed in an appendix - The book was fantastic, for years, I would buy little but Wrox and O'Reilly, but Wrox have recently lost the professionalism which they used to have.
Some people cannot legally drive a car for various reasons (usually medical - I'm not talking about having had your licence revoked!), either that or they have absolutely no desire to drive a car.
Some of those who cannot drive a car are not capable of riding a bicycle either, for example because they do not have a sufficient sense of balance.
For these people, the Segway could be a viable alternative for "Faster than Foot" transportation - if only it were a little cheaper!
If it can balance, why not make it go 50 miles an hour?
In the UK at least (IIRC anyway, too lazy to go look it up!), 15mph is the maximum speed at which a powered vehicle can travel before its owner is liable to pay road tax.
In a large enterprise, you should be making use of very basic central administration tools such as Logon Scripts (use Kixtart for complex requirements) to ensure that users always have access to the correct resources!
In the case of a printer being offline (for example, for maintenance), in a centrally managed infrastructure, it should be quite simple for you to redirect the print job to another printer at the server side, ensuring that users don't need to log out/in, or manually remap printers.
The IT Team need to know the nitty-gritty details of your enterprise network structure - but there should be no need for users to know anything other than "I save on drive X:, and I print to The Big Grey Laser"
no more having 2 to 3 licenses for every workstation because of the PDC and BDC. (yes to be legal, when you log onto your machine it uses the PDC and BDC, and therefore requires another serveruser license... otherwise you are illegally using the server software....
Where do you get this idea?
You can use Per-Seat licencing to reduce the number of CAL's you require - in Per-Seat licencing mode, you only require one CAL per workstation, not one CAL per workstation per server.
Also, a connection is only made to one authentication server at logon, unless that connection fails. An NT/2K Client will only establish a connection to a secondary authentication server if the primary server is offline.
However, I agree wholeheartedly that SAMBA offers a much more stable implementation of the SMB Protocol than NT. I have been actively using SAMBA on a number of servers in the office for File / Print services for a couple of years, and have had very few problems.
From our point of view, the big difference between NT/2K and SAMBA is the hardware requirement. Linux / SAMBA runs very happily, with less than 5% average CPU Load, on a P233MMX with 64MB of RAM. Serving the same content, NT4 was grinding to a halt on a P-III-300 with 256MB!!
We also use Linux for Firewall and Proxy services, however there are a number of systems that we cannot replace, in particular, we require MSSQL, so we need to retain a couple of NT/2K servers. Also, our virus scanning solution (Trend Officescan) requires an IIS server for it's automatic pattern file rollout (though this is behind our firewall, and is only permitted outside access to collect the updated pattern files for internal distribution).
Linux is also not suitable for certain VPN tasks - FreeBSD is a much better all-round solution, as its IPSec implementation is a better match to the official standard.
Linux has it's place in the server room, but so does MS, and other OS'es such as Free/OpenBSD.
True, however, even the strongest OO advocate has to recognise that there are some situations for which OO techniques are not best suited, for example, Safety Critical Downhole Monitoring and Control systems in the Oil Industry. (I could cite other examples, but this one I know best.)
Many Safety Critical systems are coded around a monolithic structure, mainly for the performance advantage. Though the advantage is tiny (or even non-existant) on a modern desktop workstation or server, a lot of downhole work is still done by much less powerful hardware - '486 class or similar if you are lucky (though not usually Intel Hardware).
OO Is excellent for the vast majority of applications, but it is not the be-all and end-all of programming technique!
This sounds like a case of a bunch of scientists forgetting to properly apply Occam's Razor!!
Life (even microbial life) is so extremely complex, that is seems implausable to jump to the conclusion that life must be present, simply because of a chemical marker which we find hard to make without the help of microbes!
These guys should be concentrating on eliminating other possibilities, rather than just jumping onto the News Bandwagon to get their latest 'discovery of life' publicised.
While all UK Mobile phone providers all use SIM's, the providers tend to 'lock' the phone to themselves for a minimum period, usually a year. If you want to Unlock the Phone, they'll charge you between £35 and £50.
Some of the providers will charge you to unlock the phone regardless of how long you have had it. Depending on the Special Offer du Jour, it can be more expensive to unlock your current phone than it is to just buy a new one.
With the relatively new number-portability rules, you don't even need a new number when changing Service providers - new SIM, new Phone, same number.
Also, remember that there are a number of SIM standards, 6-pin, 8-pin, 7-pin and 9-pin cards (though the vast majority are of the 6-pin type), in a mix of 5 volt, 3.3 volt, 2.5 volt, and very recently 1.7 volt designs - not all SIM Types will work with all Phones!
Unfortunately, firewalls are not the be-all and end-all of network security... A firewall can effectively protect your network from malicious access from the outside world, however it can not prevent hack-attacks on your systems which originate from within your network.
There are two primary reasons for hack-attacks originating inside a firewalled-zone:
1. A trojaned system, usually due to poor Antivirus policy and/or poor user education.
2. A Disgruntled employee who is out to get you!
Obviously, the best solutions to these problems are to implement a good Antivirus product and virus protection policy, and to keep your employees happy!
Unfortunately, no matter how hard you try, there are always likely to be problems you have not forseen - which is where Sniffers and NIDS tools come in. Whilst these tools are also not the sole answer to anyone's prayers, they can often help as part of an overall security system implementation.
Snort is (IMHO) one of the best NIDS tools out there - I have used Snort for a couple of years as part of an integrated security solution, and the logfiles it generates, once properly parsed, have helped me track down a number of threats to network security, and plug any holes present before the problems became serious.
Firewalls are not a panacea, nor are NIDS tools, used together though, they are much more than the sum of their parts....
Precicely... Personally, I'm a self-confessed 'command-line junkie'... I've lost count of the number of times that I've been watching someone clicking aimlessly in a GUI of some kind, trying to change this-or-that configuration, and I've sat down and had the change done in 60 seconds flat from the command line - and that applies to Windoze as much as to Linux...
There's nothing that you can do in a GUI that can't be done equally well from a command line. Sure, GUI's make software easier for non-techies to use, but what they do NOT do is make software easier for a non-techie to UNDERSTAND. Biiig difference.
Sony said it would continue to offer repairs and manufacture tapes for the format, adding the move would not affect its Betacam products for the broadcasting industry.
The prices are reasonable, at £15/month + VAT, but that is subject to change at the end of the trial period (31 December 2003). The price appears to be this low due to a grant from the Highlands and Islands Enterprise, and the Department of Trade and Industry.
At the moment, availability for the trial is limited to Creiff and Campbelltown, Hopefully this will be extended (I live in Aberdeen - by no means Rural, but this would still be useful for me personally).
There is a form provided for users to register their interest in the service... Perhaps if enough people register, this service will be rolled out on a wider scale... Here's hoping...
Perhaps all the Cookie Paranoia could be put to rest if there were a mandatory extension to the existing Cookie Protocol which indicated the 'type' or 'use' of a particular cookie, examples could include:
** Session Tracking
** Shopping (Carts etc.)
** Advertisers and Profilers (such as Doubleclick)
And possibly a variety of others.
Once such a system was in place, a user should be able to select whether to Accept, Reject or be Prompted for cookies of each type.
The only problem would be getting the adertisers to use their 'designated' cookie type...
Re:Absolute limit of 0.13 micron technology?
on
Pentium 4 2.8GHz
·
· Score: 1
IIRC, the more recent Intel P-IV's have been manufactured using 0.09 micron tech - leading to less thermal output, and higher possible clock rates... Perhaps this (partly) explains the $500+ price tag on the 2.8GHz part!
Slashdot Mirror
- The 'else' does change the amount of work done, and
- The else is redundant anyway, since at the end of the test-set, you only need to check the 'bad_bit' flag to see if comparison failed
On a Multitasking OS, there will still be timing differences, due to thread preemption and task swapping etc, but these differences should not yield anything useful to cryptanalysis.Sure, one GFX card may not saturate the Bus, but what about more than one?
:)
Imagine having a board with several PCI Express slots - put a Good Graphics Card in, say, each of 3 slots, and multihead your games
Also, if I understand it correctly, PCI Express is an upgrade to / replacement for PCI. Sure, it allows high-bandwidth comm to a Graphics Adapter, but also to SCSI/IDE Controllers, NIC's, Video Capture Hardware etc, etc.
but I could live without Insert and Delete.
Ah, but (on Windows at least, and in a lot of X apps):
[SHIFT]+[DELETE] = Cut
[CTRL]+[INSERT] = Copy
[SHIFT]+[INSERT] = Paste
Which is (to me at least) a lot more intuitive than [CTRL]+X,C or V for the same functions - I never can remember which is which!
1st Thought: Aww, someone wanted to adopt me (I'm a Mike, and a Geek!) /that/ kind of geek!
2nd Thought: Only part time programming... Insanity! Withdrawal!
3rd Thought: Help with E-Mail Problems? What do you take me for? I'm not
4th Thought: Pepperoni Pizza... My Faaaavourite!
5th Thought: You B****rd, You've killed me!
clause 5: The license must not discriminate against any person or group of persons.
Well, this is a classic case of "Anything can be used to build an argument when taken out of context".
This clause refers to the license the software is released under, and not the content or function of the software. Just as Microsoft's Licenses do not define the content and function of their software, the OSS License options, including the GPL, only define licensing terms, and not requirements for software content or functionality.
win9x and xp home don't support SMP
Windows XP Home does not support more than one Physical CPU, however it does support Hyperthreading (ie. more than one logical CPU). Though this is not true SMP, using SMP techniques for coding and compiling applications can yield performance increases on HT capable CPU's - and since the latest desktop P4 has HT enabled, Joe Public will soon be able to take advantage of Multiprocessor aware apps, even on XP Home.
I am a partially sighted person, and I have to admit that I do frequently have difficulty with accessability issues, particularly with large corporate web sites which all seem to be full-flow multimedia blitzes which require 1600x1200 resolution or higher, and usually override the default browser fonts to make them smaller.
However, there are a number of browsers, such as Mozilla (Just one example, I'm sure there are others!) which allow the user to 'zoom' the text on a page, to override colour settings etc.
Though it is undoubtedly important for Webmasters to pay great thought to the design of their sites in terms of colour, font size and multimedia content; how much relative importance should be placed on browser design, and the browsers ability to override the design decisions of the creator of a site?
It does:
- Slackware 8.0
- 'net Dialup
- Firewall (IP Tables, 2.4.18)
- Mail Server (Sendmail, both in and out)
- Web Server (Apache)
- Internal Forwarding DNS Server
- Distributed.net Proxy
- Distributed.net Client
- Webcam Capture
- SSH Tunnel / VPN Server
And it still has enough spare capacity to do compiles (though the kernel takes about an hour and a half!)OK, IANAQP, but As I Understand It, 'observation' does not need to be a conscious act by an intelligent (or otherwise) biological being
For example, the observation of the spin state of an electron could be done by you using complex equipment - or it could be done by another electron colliding with the first. In order for the effects of the collision to manifest themselves in the physical universe, each electron would have to 'observe' the other, and then 'act' accordingly...
Just my £0.02!
Another method which works well for generating 'random' passwords is to use Phrases, for example:
I'd like to fly, Shipwrecked and Comatose, Drinking fresh Mango Juice
Would yield the password: Il2fSaCdfMJ
Yes, I am a Red Dwarf Fan, and No, I have never used this as an actual password!!
The phrase is more easily remembered than the password, and yields a password which is relatively hard to break by brute force. Of course, phrase based passwords can be weak to Social Engineering, but that's another issue entirely!
Yes, it is a great pity that Wrox have started to go down this route...
I remember the first Wrox book I purchased - "Professional Assembly Language" or something like that - this was back in '93 or '94, and was centered around '386 Asm, with a chunk of '486 stuffed in an appendix - The book was fantastic, for years, I would buy little but Wrox and O'Reilly, but Wrox have recently lost the professionalism which they used to have.
Some people cannot legally drive a car for various reasons (usually medical - I'm not talking about having had your licence revoked!), either that or they have absolutely no desire to drive a car.
Some of those who cannot drive a car are not capable of riding a bicycle either, for example because they do not have a sufficient sense of balance.
For these people, the Segway could be a viable alternative for "Faster than Foot" transportation - if only it were a little cheaper!
If it can balance, why not make it go 50 miles an hour?
In the UK at least (IIRC anyway, too lazy to go look it up!), 15mph is the maximum speed at which a powered vehicle can travel before its owner is liable to pay road tax.
In a large enterprise, you should be making use of very basic central administration tools such as Logon Scripts (use Kixtart for complex requirements) to ensure that users always have access to the correct resources!
In the case of a printer being offline (for example, for maintenance), in a centrally managed infrastructure, it should be quite simple for you to redirect the print job to another printer at the server side, ensuring that users don't need to log out/in, or manually remap printers.
The IT Team need to know the nitty-gritty details of your enterprise network structure - but there should be no need for users to know anything other than "I save on drive X:, and I print to The Big Grey Laser"
no more having 2 to 3 licenses for every workstation because of the PDC and BDC. (yes to be legal, when you log onto your machine it uses the PDC and BDC, and therefore requires another serveruser license... otherwise you are illegally using the server software....
Where do you get this idea?
You can use Per-Seat licencing to reduce the number of CAL's you require - in Per-Seat licencing mode, you only require one CAL per workstation, not one CAL per workstation per server.
Also, a connection is only made to one authentication server at logon, unless that connection fails. An NT/2K Client will only establish a connection to a secondary authentication server if the primary server is offline.
However, I agree wholeheartedly that SAMBA offers a much more stable implementation of the SMB Protocol than NT. I have been actively using SAMBA on a number of servers in the office for File / Print services for a couple of years, and have had very few problems.
From our point of view, the big difference between NT/2K and SAMBA is the hardware requirement. Linux / SAMBA runs very happily, with less than 5% average CPU Load, on a P233MMX with 64MB of RAM. Serving the same content, NT4 was grinding to a halt on a P-III-300 with 256MB!!
We also use Linux for Firewall and Proxy services, however there are a number of systems that we cannot replace, in particular, we require MSSQL, so we need to retain a couple of NT/2K servers. Also, our virus scanning solution (Trend Officescan) requires an IIS server for it's automatic pattern file rollout (though this is behind our firewall, and is only permitted outside access to collect the updated pattern files for internal distribution).
Linux is also not suitable for certain VPN tasks - FreeBSD is a much better all-round solution, as its IPSec implementation is a better match to the official standard.
Linux has it's place in the server room, but so does MS, and other OS'es such as Free/OpenBSD.
True, however, even the strongest OO advocate has to recognise that there are some situations for which OO techniques are not best suited, for example, Safety Critical Downhole Monitoring and Control systems in the Oil Industry. (I could cite other examples, but this one I know best.)
Many Safety Critical systems are coded around a monolithic structure, mainly for the performance advantage. Though the advantage is tiny (or even non-existant) on a modern desktop workstation or server, a lot of downhole work is still done by much less powerful hardware - '486 class or similar if you are lucky (though not usually Intel Hardware).
OO Is excellent for the vast majority of applications, but it is not the be-all and end-all of programming technique!
This sounds like a case of a bunch of scientists forgetting to properly apply Occam's Razor!!
Life (even microbial life) is so extremely complex, that is seems implausable to jump to the conclusion that life must be present, simply because of a chemical marker which we find hard to make without the help of microbes!
These guys should be concentrating on eliminating other possibilities, rather than just jumping onto the News Bandwagon to get their latest 'discovery of life' publicised.
While all UK Mobile phone providers all use SIM's, the providers tend to 'lock' the phone to themselves for a minimum period, usually a year. If you want to Unlock the Phone, they'll charge you between £35 and £50.
Some of the providers will charge you to unlock the phone regardless of how long you have had it. Depending on the Special Offer du Jour, it can be more expensive to unlock your current phone than it is to just buy a new one.
With the relatively new number-portability rules, you don't even need a new number when changing Service providers - new SIM, new Phone, same number.
Also, remember that there are a number of SIM standards, 6-pin, 8-pin, 7-pin and 9-pin cards (though the vast majority are of the 6-pin type), in a mix of 5 volt, 3.3 volt, 2.5 volt, and very recently 1.7 volt designs - not all SIM Types will work with all Phones!
Unfortunately, firewalls are not the be-all and end-all of network security... A firewall can effectively protect your network from malicious access from the outside world, however it can not prevent hack-attacks on your systems which originate from within your network.
There are two primary reasons for hack-attacks originating inside a firewalled-zone:
1. A trojaned system, usually due to poor Antivirus policy and/or poor user education.
2. A Disgruntled employee who is out to get you!
Obviously, the best solutions to these problems are to implement a good Antivirus product and virus protection policy, and to keep your employees happy!
Unfortunately, no matter how hard you try, there are always likely to be problems you have not forseen - which is where Sniffers and NIDS tools come in. Whilst these tools are also not the sole answer to anyone's prayers, they can often help as part of an overall security system implementation.
Snort is (IMHO) one of the best NIDS tools out there - I have used Snort for a couple of years as part of an integrated security solution, and the logfiles it generates, once properly parsed, have helped me track down a number of threats to network security, and plug any holes present before the problems became serious.
Firewalls are not a panacea, nor are NIDS tools, used together though, they are much more than the sum of their parts....
Umm - this is only the first page - There is a lot more to the article than this... Now, if only I could //get// to the darned thing...!
/. Effect!!! Grr!
Dammed
Precicely... Personally, I'm a self-confessed 'command-line junkie'... I've lost count of the number of times that I've been watching someone clicking aimlessly in a GUI of some kind, trying to change this-or-that configuration, and I've sat down and had the change done in 60 seconds flat from the command line - and that applies to Windoze as much as to Linux...
There's nothing that you can do in a GUI that can't be done equally well from a command line. Sure, GUI's make software easier for non-techies to use, but what they do NOT do is make software easier for a non-techie to UNDERSTAND. Biiig difference.
Umm - did you Read The article?
Sony said it would continue to offer repairs and manufacture tapes for the format, adding the move would not affect its Betacam products for the broadcasting industry.
'nuff said!
The prices are reasonable, at £15/month + VAT, but that is subject to change at the end of the trial period (31 December 2003). The price appears to be this low due to a grant from the Highlands and Islands Enterprise, and the Department of Trade and Industry.
At the moment, availability for the trial is limited to Creiff and Campbelltown, Hopefully this will be extended (I live in Aberdeen - by no means Rural, but this would still be useful for me personally).
There is a form provided for users to register their interest in the service... Perhaps if enough people register, this service will be rolled out on a wider scale... Here's hoping...
Perhaps all the Cookie Paranoia could be put to rest if there were a mandatory extension to the existing Cookie Protocol which indicated the 'type' or 'use' of a particular cookie, examples could include:
** Session Tracking
** Shopping (Carts etc.)
** Advertisers and Profilers (such as Doubleclick)
And possibly a variety of others.
Once such a system was in place, a user should be able to select whether to Accept, Reject or be Prompted for cookies of each type.
The only problem would be getting the adertisers to use their 'designated' cookie type...
IIRC, the more recent Intel P-IV's have been manufactured using 0.09 micron tech - leading to less thermal output, and higher possible clock rates... Perhaps this (partly) explains the $500+ price tag on the 2.8GHz part!